The vengeance for the violated name of Christ went forth, and just so far as the edicts of Decius had run to ravage the churches, just so far did the plague of incredible diseases extend itself: there was scarcely any Roman province, no city, no household, that was not seized and emptied by that general pestilence. By this calamity alone notable, Gallus and Volusianus, while they were contriving civil war against Aemilianus who was striving for revolutionary measures, were slain. Aemilianus, however, was extinguished in the third month of his usurped tyranny. In the 1010th year from the founding of the City, two emperors were created in the twenty-seventh place after Augustus: Valerian, hailed Augustus by the army in Raetia, and at Rome Gallienus, created Caesar by the senate.
And Gallienus remained in the kingdom unhappily for fifteen years, while the human race breathed again a little from that pestilence which was beyond the usual, continuous and grievous. Forgetful malice provokes its own punishment. For impiety indeed feels the scourges with which it is tormented, but, hardened, it does not perceive by whom it is scourged. To say nothing of earlier matters: when the persecution of the Christians was carried out by Decius, the whole Roman empire was vexed by a great pestilence. Iniquity lied to itself, deceived by a perverse judgement to its own destruction, supposing the pestilence to be a common accident, and death befalling from diseases to be the end of nature and not a punishment. Again therefore, and within a short time, it provokes by its wicked deeds the wrath of God, about to receive a stroke of which it would for some while be compelled to remember.
For Valerian, as soon as he had grasped the empire—the eighth from Nero—ordered that the Christians be driven by torments to idolatry, and that those who refused be killed, the blood of the saints being poured out throughout the whole breadth of the Roman realm. Valerian at once, the author of that wicked edict, was captured by Sapor king of the Persians, and the emperor of the Roman people grew old in the most ignominious servitude among the Persians, allotted the continual condemnation of that infamous office, as long as he lived: namely that he himself, bending to the ground, should always offer his back, not his hand, to the king when about to mount his horse, to lift him up. And Gallienus indeed, terrified by so clear a judgement of God and moved by the wretched example of his colleague, restored peace to the churches with anxious atonement.
But the perpetual and beyond-measure abominable captivity of one impious man does not balance the measure of injury and vengeance against so many thousands of saints tortured; and the blood of the righteous, crying out to God, asks to be avenged in that same land where it was poured out. For not only of the just founder of the decree was punishment demanded by righteous judgement, but also of the executors, informers, accusers, spectators, and judges—lastly of all who, even by silent will, assented to that most unjust cruelty (since God is the knower of secrets)—of whom the greatest part of men was occupied throughout all the provinces; and it was just that they be seized by the same stroke of vengeance.
Suddenly, by the permission of God, the peoples placed round about and left there for this purpose are unloosed on every side, and with reins slackened they pour into all the territories of the Romans. The Germans, having penetrated through the Alps, Raetia, and all Italy, reach as far as Ravenna; the Alamanni, ranging through the Gallic provinces, even cross over into Italy; Greece, Macedonia, Pontus, and Asia are devastated by an inundation of the Goths; for Dacia beyond the Danube is lost forever; the Quadi and Sarmatians lay waste the Pannonias; the farther Germans seize Spain, which is stripped bare; the Parthians carry off Mesopotamia and ravage Syria.
There still remain, throughout the various provinces, in the ruins of great cities, small and poor settlements, preserving the marks of their miseries and tokens of their names; among which we ourselves point out in Spain our own Tarraco, for the consolation of recent misery. And lest by chance any part of the Roman body should cease from this dismemberment, tyrants conspire from within, civil wars arise, and everywhere very much Roman blood is poured out, with Romans and barbarians alike raging; but soon the wrath of God is turned to mercy, and the greater shape of the vengeance begun is reckoned, rather than its penalty, into the measure of fullness. So then first Ingenuus, who had assumed the purple of empire, is killed at Mursa. Postumus in Gaul.
He usurped the tyranny, indeed to the great advantage of the commonwealth, for over ten years, employing immense virtue and moderation, he both expelled the dominating enemies and restored the lost provinces to their former condition; yet he was slain in a mutiny of the soldiers. Aemilianus was overwhelmed at Mogontiacum while he was contriving revolutionary measures. After the death of Postumus, Marius seized the empire in the same place, but was at once slain. Then Victorinus was unsolicitedly created by the Gauls and after a little while was killed. To him succeeded Tetricus, who at that time was administering the office of governor of Aquitania. He endured many mutinies of the soldiers.
But in the East, by a certain Odenatus, with a peasant band gathered together, the Persians were defeated and driven back, Syria was defended, Mesopotamia was recovered, and the rustics of Syria with their Odenatus came conquering as far as Ctesiphon. Gallienus, moreover, since he had deserted the commonwealth and was given over to his lusts at Mediolanum, was killed. In the 1025th year from the founding of the City, Claudius, the twenty-eighth, took up the empire by the will of the senate, and at once, attacking in war the Goths who had already for fifteen years been laying waste Illyricum and Macedonia, destroyed them with incredible slaughter. To him a golden shield in the senate-house and a likewise golden statue on the Capitol were decreed by the senate; but at once at Sirmium, before he had completed two years in the empire, he was seized by disease and perished.
When Claudius died, his brother Quintillus was chosen emperor by the army, a man indeed of singular moderation and alone fit to be preferred to his brother; he was slain on the seventeenth day of his reign. In the 1027th year from the founding of the City, Aurelian, having attained the empire as the twenty-ninth, held it for five years and six months, a man most excellent in military diligence. Having undertaken an expedition to the Danube, he routed the Goths in great battles and established the Roman dominion within its ancient bounds. Then turning to the East, he reduced into his power—more by the terror of battle than by battle itself—Zenobia, who, after her husband Odenatus was killed, claimed for herself the recovered province of Syria. Tetricus, in Gaul quite unable to bear up under the mutinies of his soldiers, and even writing:
'Rescue me from these evils, O unconquered one'—and by this means he overcame without effort the betrayer of his own army. Thus, as recoverer of the East and the North, he triumphed with great glory. He girt the city of Rome with stronger walls; and most recently, when as the ninth after Nero he was decreeing that a persecution be carried out against the Christians, a thunderbolt fell before him to the great terror of those standing around, and not long after he was killed on a journey. In the 1032nd year from the founding of the City, Tacitus, the thirtieth, having attained the empire, was killed in the sixth month in Pontus. After him Florianus, bearing an equal lot of rule, was at last in the third month slain at Tarsus. In the 1033rd year from the founding of the City, Probus, the thirty-first, having obtained the kingdom, held it for six years and four months.
The Gallic provinces, long since occupied by barbarians, he at last by many grievous battles, after the enemies were destroyed, set free completely. Then he waged two civil wars with very much blood: one in the East, in which he overwhelmed and captured Saturninus, who had relied on usurpation; another, in which he slew Proculus and Bonosus, overcome in great battles at Agrippina. He himself, however, was killed at Sirmium in an iron tower in a military tumult. In the 1039th year from the founding of the City, Carus of Narbo, the thirty-second, took up the empire and held it for two years.
When he had made his sons Carinus and Numerianus partners in the kingdom, after in the Parthian war he had taken two most noble cities of the Parthians, Coche and Ctesiphon, he was struck by a thunderbolt in his camp above the Tigris and perished. Numerianus, who had been with his father, while returning was slain by the treachery of his father-in-law Aper. In the 1041st year from the founding of the City, Diocletian, the thirty-third, chosen emperor by the army, reigned for twenty years; and as soon as he had the fullness of power, he slew with his own hand Aper, the slayer of Numerianus. Then Carinus, whom Carus had left as Caesar in Dalmatia, living shamefully, he overcame in a most difficult war and with the greatest labor.
Then, when in Gaul Amandus and Aelianus, having gathered a band of peasants whom they called Bacaudae, had stirred up destructive tumults, he made Maximian, surnamed Herculius, Caesar and sent him into the Gallic provinces: who easily, by military valor, composed the unskilled and confused band of rustic men. Then a certain Carausius, of the lowest birth indeed but prompt in counsel and in action, when, having been stationed to guard the shores of the Ocean, which the Franks and Saxons were then infesting, he was acting more for the ruin than for the advancement of the commonwealth—by in no way restoring to their owners the booty wrested from the pirates, but claiming it for himself alone—kindled suspicion, because by artful negligence he was permitting the very enemies to raid the borders:
On which account, ordered by Maximian to be put to death, he assumed the purple and occupied the Britains. So then throughout all the bounds of the Roman empire the crashes of sudden disturbances resounded, with Carausius rebelling in the Britains, Achilleus in Egypt, while the Quinquegentiani were also infesting Africa, and Narseus too, king of the Persians, was pressing the East with war. Disturbed by this peril, Diocletian made Maximian Herculius an Augustus instead of Caesar, and chose Constantius and Maximian Galerius as Caesars. Constantius took as wife Theodora, the stepdaughter of Herculius Maximian, by whom he raised six sons, brothers of Constantine. Carausius, after Britain had been most bravely claimed and held by him for seven years, was at last slain by the treachery of his ally Allectus.
Allectus afterward held for three years the island he had wrested from Carausius: him Asclepiodotus, the praetorian prefect, overwhelmed, and after ten years recovered Britain. Constantius indeed, as Caesar in Gaul, in the first battle, his army having been routed by the Alamanni, was himself scarcely snatched to safety; but in the second a victory sufficiently favorable followed: for in a few hours sixty thousand of the Alamanni are reported to have been slain. But Maximian Augustus subdued the Quinquegentiani in Africa. Diocletian, moreover, captured and killed Achilleus, besieged for eight months at Alexandria. But, employing his victory immoderately, he gave Alexandria over to plunder and defiled all Egypt with proscriptions and slaughters.
Besides, Galerius Maximian, when he had already joined battle twice against Narseus, in a third engagement between Callinicum and Carrhae was defeated, and, his forces lost, fled back to Diocletian: by whom he was received most arrogantly, so that he is said to have run in his purple robes before Diocletian's carriage for several miles. Yet he made use of this insult as a whetstone to valor, by which, the rust of royal pride being worn away, he sharpened the edge of his mind. And so soon, through Illyricum and Moesia, he drew together forces from every side, and swiftly returning against the enemy, overcame Narseus with great counsels and forces.
The Persian forces being destroyed and Narseus himself driven into flight, he seized his camp, captured his wives, sisters, and children, plundered an immense quantity of Persian treasure, and led away very many captives of the Persian nobility. Returning into Mesopotamia, he was received by Diocletian with very great honor. Afterward, through these same leaders, it was vigorously fought against the Carpi and Basternae. Then they conquered the Sarmatians: of whom they dispersed a very abundant captive multitude among the garrisons within the Roman borders. Meanwhile Diocletian in the East and Maximian Herculius in the West commanded that the churches be laid waste, and the Christians afflicted and killed, in the tenth place after Nero:
which persecution was longer and more savage than almost all those carried out before, for over ten years it was conducted incessantly with burnings of churches, proscriptions of the innocent, and slaughters of martyrs. There follows an earthquake in Syria, by which at Tyre and Sidon, with roofs collapsing everywhere, many thousands of men were struck down. In the second year of the persecution Diocletian exacted from the unwilling Maximian that they should together lay down the purple and the empire, and, with younger men substituted in the commonwealth, should themselves grow old in private leisure. And so on one and the same day Diocletian at Nicomedia and Maximian at Mediolanum laid down at once both the power of empire and its trappings.
Galerius and Constantius, the first Augusti, divided the Roman empire into two parts: Galerius Maximian obtained Illyricum, Asia, and the East, Constantius Italy, Africa, and the Gallic provinces; but Constantius, a most tranquil man, content with Gaul [and Spain] alone, yielded the other parts to Galerius. Galerius chose two Caesars: Maximinus, whom he set over the East, and Severus, to whom he assigned Italy, himself being stationed in Illyricum. Constantius indeed, an Augustus of the utmost mildness and civility, met his death in Britain. He left as emperor of the Gallic provinces his son Constantine, born of his concubine Helena.
In the 1061st year from the founding of the City, Constantine, the thirty-fourth, took up the helm of empire from his father Constantius, which he held most happily for thirty-one years. Suddenly I am met, and with certain capering they exult over me: 'Lo,' they say, 'at last you have come, long awaited, into our pits. Here we waited for you to run down; here, having slipped, we crush you; here, confounded, we hold you. We have borne with you thus far, while you in a certain artful and crafty way fitted the chance changes of the times to the vengeances of the Christians.'
And at times indeed, moved by the appearance of probabilities—being men ignorant of divine secrets—we grew pale with fear; but now our Maximian has emptied the whole scene of your tale, and the antiquity of our religion has shone forth as an unconquerable column. For ten years your churches were overthrown, as even you confess; the Christians throughout the whole world were torn with tortures and emptied out by deaths. We hold your own clear testimony, that no earlier persecution was either so grievous or so long-lasting. And yet, behold, amid the most tranquil goods of the times, an unwonted felicity even of those very emperors who did these things:
no famine at home, no pestilence, no war abroad except a voluntary one, by which their strength might be exercised, not endangered; and besides, a thing until now unknown to the human race: the patient consortship of many kings at once, with great concord, and a power held in common, never elsewhere, but now looking to the common good. Then also—what is altogether without any knowledge of mortals hitherto—those greatest emperors, and persecutors at that, having laid down their honor and taken up rest, became private men—which men judge the most blessed thing and the highest good of a good life—and this the very authors of the persecution then obtained as if in the place of a reward, at the very time when the kindled persecution was raging through the whole world in the midst of its course.
Or do you assert that this blessedness too befell them in those times as a punishment, and do you contrive from this also to terrify us? To whom I would humbly answer that, girt with much care of piety, I am admonishing concerning true things, not terrifying concerning false ones. Ten persecutions from Nero to Maximian the Church of Christ has suffered: nine acts of vengeance, as I have said, nine calamities, as they themselves do not deny, followed close upon their tracks. Nor do I press the word; whether they seem to have been due vengeances or chance changes, they were nevertheless, by my testimony and their own, disasters. In the tenth they think the matter doubtful, wretched and blind, not seeing that it was as much the heavier for them as it was the less understood. For the impious man is scourged and does not feel it.
And when this has been set forth, they will confess, however unwilling, on account of the very trustworthiness of the facts, that from that greatest punishment of the Maximian persecution come these wounds, by which even now those men suffer, and suffer so greatly that they even cry out and provoke us to cry back: that they become anxious as to how they may fall silent. In the first book it was set forth by us that Pompeius Trogus and Cornelius Tacitus had recorded—not fully, indeed—but our own Moses, faithful even by their testimony, had faithfully and sufficiently said, that the Egyptians and their king, when they were recalling the people of God—who were intent and ready to serve their own God—to clay and chaff, by the impulse of hindering their devotion, were vexed by ten most bitter plagues.
Then, subdued by the violence of evils, they not only compelled them as they hastened away, but even heaped them up with their own silver and golden vessels. Afterward, forgetful of their plague and greedy for booty not their due, and envious too of another's religion, while they eagerly pursued the innocent, they were finally received into the Red Sea and all utterly perished. This I now report and relate, even if perhaps it is not accepted on faith, yet to be proven by the outcome, because these things were done as a figure of ourselves. Each people is of the one God; one is the cause of both peoples. The synagogue of the Israelites was subject to the Egyptians; the church of the Christians is subject to the Romans. The Egyptians persecuted; the Romans also persecuted.
There were ten obstinacies against Moses, here ten edicts against Christ; there diverse plagues of the Egyptians, here diverse calamities of the Romans. For, that I may even compare the plagues themselves with one another—insofar, however, as the figure of the form admits of comparison—there the first chastisement had blood, that it either flowed forth from the wells among the common folk or ran in the rivers: here the first plague under Nero exacted that everywhere there should be the blood of the dying, either corrupted by diseases in the City or poured out by wars throughout the world. There the following plague brought forth frogs croaking and leaping in the inner chambers, which were nearly the cause of starvation and exile to the inhabitants:
here the following punishment under Domitian likewise showed it, when by the wicked and unbridled rovings of his satellites and soldiers, who carried out the commands of a most bloodthirsty prince, almost all the citizens of Rome were driven to want and scattered into exile. There the third vexation had the sciniphes, that is, the tiniest and most savage gnats, which often in the midst of summer heats, vibrating in dense swarms through squalid places, are wont to glide with a shrill flight and to insert themselves with a burning bite into the hair of men and the bristles of beasts:
here likewise the third plague under Trajan stirred up the Jews, who, after they had hitherto been everywhere dispersed and were resting as though they no longer existed, were all suddenly moved by a sudden heat and raged throughout the whole world against those among whom they were dwelling—besides the great ruins of many cities, which frequent earthquakes overthrew in those same times. There in the fourth plague there were dog-flies, truly the nurslings of putrefaction and the mothers of worms: here likewise the fourth plague under Marcus Antoninus, a pestilence poured into very many provinces, gave over to putrefaction and worms Italy too, with the city of Rome and the whole Roman army, dispersed along the distant frontiers and in diverse winter quarters, dissolved unto death.
There the fifth chastisement was fulfilled by the sudden destruction of cattle and beasts of burden: here likewise in the fifth act of vengeance, under the persecutor Severus, by very frequent civil wars its own vitals and the supports of the commonwealth—that is, the common folk of the provinces and the legions of soldiers—were ground to pieces. There the sixth vexation brought boiling blisters and running ulcers: here likewise the sixth punishment, which came after the persecution of Maximinus—who had commanded that bishops and clergy in particular, the common throng being passed over, that is, the chief men of the churches, be slaughtered—swelling repeatedly with wrath and envy, was breathed out not through the slaughter of the common people but through the wounds and deaths of princes and the powerful.
There the seventh plague is counted as hail poured down from compacted air, which was destruction to men, beasts of burden, and crops: here likewise the seventh, under Gallus and Volusianus, who had succeeded the persecutor Decius soon after he was slain, a plague arose, a pestilence poured in from corrupted air, which throughout all the spaces of the Roman realm from East to West both gave over to death nearly every kind of men and beasts, and also corrupted the lakes and infected the pastures with foul decay. There the eighth crushing of Egypt was wrought by locusts stirred up from every side, holding, wearing away, and covering all things: here likewise the eighth, for the overturning of the Roman world, the peoples stirred up from every side brought in, which by slaughters and burnings destroyed all the provinces.
There the ninth affliction brought on a long-lasting, thick darkness that could almost be touched, threatening far more peril than it actually inflicted; here, likewise, there was a ninth chastisement, when, as Aurelian was decreeing persecution, a terrible and grievous thunderbolt fell amid dreadful whirlwinds at his very feet, showing what so great an Avenger could do when such vengeance demanded it, were He not also merciful and patient; and yet within six months from that time three successive emperors, that is, Aurelian, Tacitus, and Florian, were killed for various reasons. There, finally, came the tenth plague, which was the very last of all, the slaying of the firstborn sons, of those whom each had first begotten;
here no less did the tenth, that is the last, punishment come, the destruction of all the idols which they had at first made and chiefly loved. There the king felt, tested, and feared the power of God, and through this allowed the people of God to depart free; here the king felt, tested, and believed the power of God, and through this allowed the people of God to be free. There the people of God were never afterward dragged back into bondage; here the people of God were never afterward forced into idolatry. There the precious vessels of the Egyptians were handed over to the Hebrews; here the foremost temples of the pagans passed into the churches of the Christians.
Indeed, as I have said, I think this ought to be declared: that just as, when the Egyptians, after these ten plagues had let the Hebrews go, strove to pursue them, everlasting destruction rushed upon them through the sea drawn over them, so too there awaits us, who are freely on our pilgrimage, a persecution of the heathen that shall one day come upon us, until we pass through the Red Sea, that is, the fire of judgment, with our Lord Jesus Christ Himself as leader and judge. But these men, into whom the figure of the Egyptians is poured, raging with power granted for a time, will indeed by God's permission pursue Christians with the most grievous tortures;
yet these same enemies of Christ, all of them, together with their king Antichrist, received into the lake of eternal fire—which, while it is not seen because of the great hindering darkness, is entered—shall be allotted everlasting destruction, doomed to burn in undying torments. Therefore, Constantius having died, as I said, in Britain, Constantine was made emperor, the first Christian among the emperors except for Philip, who, it seemed to me, was made a Christian for very few years for this one purpose only: that Rome's thousandth year might be dedicated to Christ rather than to idols. From Constantine onward, however, all the emperors have always been Christians, made up to the present day, except for Julian, whom, as they say, while he was plotting wicked things, his accursed life forsook.
This is that slow but sure punishment of the pagans; hence the sane go mad, hence the unwounded are pierced, hence the laughing groan, hence the living fail, hence in secret they are tortured whom no one persecutes, hence now very few remain who have never been punished by any persecutor. Nevertheless I will set forth what end awaited those persecutors, of whose impunity they try not only to boast but even to insult us. While Constantine was most vigorously governing the commonwealth in Gaul, the praetorian soldiers at Rome proclaimed Maxentius, son of Herculius, who was living as a private man in Lucania, Augustus.
Maximian Herculius, now reduced from Augustus to a private man yet still a public persecutor, stirred up by the opportunity afforded by his son who had cast off the imperial power, seized the tyranny. Galerius Augustus sent Severus Caesar with an army to Rome against Maxentius. When Severus was besieging the City, he was deserted and betrayed by the crime of his own soldiers, and fleeing from there was killed at Ravenna. Herculius Maximian, a persecutor and from Augustus a tyrant, attempting to strip his son—now confirmed in power—of his royal robe and authority, but openly terrified by the abuse and uproars of the soldiers, set out for Gaul, in order to take away the empire from Constantine his son-in-law, having joined himself to him likewise by treachery.
But, detected and betrayed through his daughter, then turned to flight, he was overpowered and killed at Massilia. Furthermore Galerius, after Severus was slain, made Licinius emperor. And when he himself had heaped up the persecution begun by Diocletian and Maximian with still more savage edicts, and after for ten years he had drained the provinces of every kind of men, his chest rotting inwardly and his vital organs dissolving, when beyond the horror of human misery he even belched forth worms, and the physicians, unable any longer to bear the stench, were frequently killed by his order: rebuked by a certain physician who drew steadfastness from desperation—telling him that his punishment was the wrath of God and therefore could not be cured by physicians—he sent edicts far and wide and recalled the Christians from exile.
But he himself, unable to bear the torments, did violence to his own life. So at that time the commonwealth was under the four chief rulers, Constantine and Maxentius, sons of the Augusti, and Licinius and Maximinus, new men. Constantine granted peace to the churches ten years after they had been harassed by the persecutors. Then civil war arose between Constantine and Maxentius. Maxentius, often worn down in many battles, was at last defeated and killed at the Mulvian Bridge. Maximinus, the most hostile instigator and executor of the persecution of Christians, perished at Tarsus while he was preparing civil war against Licinius. Licinius, roused by a sudden frenzy, ordered all the Christians to be expelled from his palace.